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The Obama Watch
Is Obama Administration the Most Anti-Business in Recent Memory?
It’s what’s known as a rhetorical question.
Is the Obama Administration the most anti-business administration in our lifetime? Recently, I was invited to CNBC’s Kudlow Report where I had the joy of debating former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean and BET founder Robert Johnson on that very question.
During the course of that interview, Dean — naturally — argued that in fact Americans’ animosity was directed primarily at business these days, which is about as absurd and counter-factual a position as one can take. However, I was pleasantly surprised when Johnson, an Obama supporter and also a business owner, generally agreed with my views on the current administration.
Johnson is only seeing the obvious, as was I when I said the Obama administration is the most anti-business in my lifetime. Which others come close? Presidents Kennedy and Johnson dealt with big issues but viewed business as partners. President Nixon saw business as an ally, despite his missteps on wage and price controls and leaving the gold standard. President Ford understood that business created jobs and had little opportunity to hurt business.
While generally remembered as unfriendly to business, President Carter was a businessman and his “malaise” and oil cartel challenges were not anti-business. The first President Bush was good for business as was President Clinton, whose main defects were moral. President George W. Bush made some whopper mistakes — but could hardly be called bad for business.
But in just under three years, the Obama Administration has hurt American business more than all these Administrations put together.
Let’s see: Obama appointees at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have not only blocked Boeing from making planes in South Carolina, but they have greased the speed of union elections, made decertification votes impossible, changed the requirement that a majority of workers vote for a union, and required almost every workplace in America to put posters up advising workers of their unionization rights.
The Obama Administration claims to want to double exports and support free trade, but it took it nearly three years to send the pending trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea to Congress. Which means that in all this time American companies have been paying higher tariffs for exports.
The Obama Administration has proposed 219 new rules affecting industries, each of which will cost at least $100 million to comply. While the Washington legal business is growing, every industry and business is affected, scared, and confused by the massive new proposals. Small businesses are especially overwhelmed and must hire lawyers to understand and comply with the massive amount of new regulation.
The Obama crown-jewel “achievements” of the new health care and Dodd-Frank financial laws adversely affect almost every American business, totaled almost 3,000 pages of statutory language, and will result in huge costs on employers.
I believe President Obama is not anti-business. Nor is he pro-business. He doesn’t have the experience to be either. I think he wants more American jobs but he has hired hordes of bright, passionate, and aggressive political appointees primarily committed to various causes. The causes sadly have little to do with jobs or business and more often focus on the environment, social justice, and union rights. More important, Obama’s politically appointed officials generally lack any significant business experience.
What else makes this Administration anti-business? It has proposed rules for government employees restricting their ability to help host and participate in major trade events like our International CES, which is held each January in Las Vegas. So while we host 30,000 international government officials and trade visitors, U.S. government employees would not be able to attend. By comparison, our competitor in Germany has its chancellor, Angela Merkel, attending and hosting a welcome dinner every year. We can’t even get a welcome letter out of the White House. So let’s make our smallest companies travel abroad if they hope to export.
And if all this isn’t enough, what about the president’s class warfare rhetoric? “Corporations” and “greed” seem to go together in every Obama address. “Spread the wealth around” and all forms of higher taxes on successful entrepreneurs are part of the president’s reelection platform. I don’t recall a President benefiting from so much American innovative business success (Facebook, Google, Twitter, Groupon and scores more) who is so hostile to the concept of the American Dream.
So is this Administration the most anti-business in recent memory?
Yes. No one else even comes close.
About the Author
Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer electronics companies, and author of the New York Times best-selling books, Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World’s Most Successful Businesses and The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream. His views are his own. Connect with him on Twitter: @GaryShapiro.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (52) | Leave a comment
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Michael Tomlinson| 10.12.11 @ 6:11AM
"So is this Administration the most anti-business in recent memory? Yes. No one else even comes close."
Spot on!
Occam's Tool| 10.12.11 @ 4:23PM
And to Michael's excellent comments I must add---I do believe that this President IS anti-business. I think he hates Capitalism and Entrepeneurs. I think he is a natural ally to America's enemies.
In short, I don't believe that he is a good man, let alone a good President.
Trinacria| 10.12.11 @ 7:28PM
Amen, brother!
irish19| 10.12.11 @ 9:03PM
Ditto!
Alan Brooks| 10.12.11 @ 4:27PM
Clinton did the same thing as Obama is doing '93- '96, and then feinted to the Right: "the era of Big Government is over"-- until George W. Bush resurrected Big Government in its highest form.
feint to the Right
feint to the Left
get re-elected
is what's best!
irish19| 10.12.11 @ 9:03PM
Need to work on your rhyming.
Alan Brooks | 10.12.11 @ 6:00PM
This may be the eugenics PostAmerican keeps referencing:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi.....aganda.jpg
POST American| 10.12.11 @ 6:33AM
HAVE TO FACE the unfolding reality
of the 4 decades underway, deliberate,
carefully planned, Globalist RED China
set up, sellout and TREASON and EUGENICS
OP.
---------------------HIGH TIME-------------------------
Alan Brooks| 10.12.11 @ 4:28PM
eugenics! yes, the T4 program!
Alan Brooks| 10.12.11 @ 5:56PM
Thank God PA is so crazy,
he makes me appear in comparison to be almost sane.
Pecos Pete| 10.12.11 @ 6:48AM
Mr. Shapiro: ALL of the Republican candidates should focus on King O's anti-business administration. Maybe they will read your comments and start to swing away instead of playing rope-a-dope. Well done, sir.
Hal G. P. Colebatch| 10.12.11 @ 7:08AM
Australia's economic developmenmt was crippled by, among other things, over-mighty unions. Ever noticed why no ships fly the Australian flag, though Australia is an island? - unions priced them out of business. That's just one example. Don't let it happen in America. I was a lawyer for an Australian union for several years and I know what I'm talking about.
Old Soldier| 10.12.11 @ 6:06PM
It's already happened. There are virtually no civilian American flagged vessels on the high seas.
Teaghan| 10.12.11 @ 7:18AM
"I believe Pres obama is not anti business"
THAT couldn't be farther from the truth Gary. Was this a typeO? He hates anyone who makes a profit, unless they are giving some of those profits to HIM. He hates us who don't march in lockstep with his marxist ideals and he hates business.
SpiralArchitect| 10.12.11 @ 1:48PM
Obviously.
Richard Baker| 10.12.11 @ 7:27AM
Look at the company he has kept in his lifetime. A veritable rouges gallery of whiners, communists, terrorists, and other such human debris. Regardless of his lack of experience in business, he has drunk from the Cup of Marx his whole sorry life.
Mike D.| 10.12.11 @ 7:40AM
He's a communist, Duh!
Michael Tomlinson| 10.12.11 @ 7:46AM
Pecos Pete:
They should also read McCotter Trailblazes Social Security Prosperity in the same posting of TAS online. Another creative plan to save FDR's failed Ponzi scheme.
JimH| 10.12.11 @ 8:00AM
It is not anti-business as such. If your business has administration connections or you are willing to pay the price, particularly if you are large company the One's administration is happy to accept your contribution and grant you a waiver or fast track a government loan. Barack is not anti-business. He is anti-market. People keep calling him a Socialist or Communist, but what he does with policies of intervention, regulation favoritism for large friendly corporations and shared government ownership is Fascism. He may be the first non nationalist Fascist.
Deborah D | 10.12.11 @ 8:14AM
Excellent point, JimH. "Non nationalist Fascist" -- I believe you've coined a new term, and it fits the O to a T.
Al Adab| 10.12.11 @ 11:33AM
Not a bad term at all, it does define this system. What we have been calling "croney Capitalism" is in fact Fascism. Remember how rich Goering got with the Nazis? Government picking favored companies and those companies funding election campaigns is exactly as the F word describes.
Trinacria| 10.12.11 @ 7:31PM
"People keep calling him a Socialist or Communist, but what he does with policies of intervention, regulation favoritism for large friendly corporations and shared government ownership is Fascism. He may be the first non nationalist Fascist."
JimH,
This is a brilliant point; well done!
Michael Tomlinson| 10.12.11 @ 8:25AM
Jim H:
Exactly! Fascism the worst of communism, socialism and crony capitalism.
Moira Egan| 10.13.11 @ 12:32PM
Non-nationalist Fascism is what the United Nations Agenda 21 is all about. N'est-ce pas?
Timothy L. Pennell| 10.12.11 @ 8:46AM
Nice article. Thanks for "Informing us" that he's not User Friendly, where Businesses are concerned.
Next, you'll be telling us that he's a Liberal. That, he's Half Black, and was Raised in Indonesia, and that his Wife, has a Fat Ass, $600 Sneakers, and $3,000 Handbags, to go with her Bow Legs, her Big Mouth, and her Circus Clown Wardrobe.
I'm curious. Does he tell LIES, all the time? Is he a Hypocrite? Does he bash Millionaires and Billionaires bye Day, and Wine and Dine, with them, bye Night? Does he tell us that we must SHARE in the SACRIFICE, while he and the Wookie, blow $10 Million of OUR MONEY, on Vacations? Did he take the School Vouchers away from POOR BLACK CHILDREN, in D.C., forcing them in to the same Dysfunctional D.C. Public Schools, that he said were "Not up to my Daughter's Standards"?
How much do they pay you, at this job? And, can I get a job there, too?
Boar Hunter| 10.12.11 @ 10:51AM
Daaaang brother! Go, Go Go!
But I believe you were wrong on one count. "They" did not spend $10 mil on "vacations." If I recall correctly, the $10 mil was on just one of Michelle's vacations and I have serious doubts the $10 mil was a proper accounting cause they lie about everything.
LOL, can you imagine if Laura Bush had spent just $1 million on a vacation?
ds80| 10.12.11 @ 10:54AM
Timothy, why are you bashing the messenger? Are you constipated?
Stammon| 10.12.11 @ 11:32AM
By God; tell us how you really feel.
Michelle O| 10.12.11 @ 7:32PM
My ass is NOT fat! It's just these damn jeans...
PattyMor| 10.12.11 @ 8:58AM
No, he's an openly anti-American President. He bows and scrapes before potentates, emirs, and kings. He hates the Constitution as written. And he's openly defying court orders and laws. And, he his core values are redistribution, communism, and radicalism.
Lawrence Boccardi| 10.12.11 @ 9:02AM
We are all pretty much agreed that he is anti-business, or anti-capitalist, or anti-success, or anything else we stand for. The fact that he won't admit it, or change direction, is evidence that his goal is to destroy our free-market economy.
emilio lizardo, PhD| 10.12.11 @ 9:14AM
All valid points concerning the destructive force of the dismal Obama presidency and his deeply flawed personal character. But yall saw the debates and know history. Does anyone really think Romney can beat him next year? Dole...McCain....Romney..I'm just sayin. Things are going to get worse, much worse, before they get better.
Trinacria| 10.12.11 @ 7:40PM
You might be right, EL, but I'm beginning to think that the candidate is irrelevant. When we've reached the point where so many Americans have become so demonstrably stupid and unpardonably derelict in the obligation to take their vote seriously that they would enthusiastically elect a profoundly unqualified, inexperienced, inadequate, third rate community organizing hack with no relevant experience or noteworthy achievement and not even the slightest hint of a specific plan, well, does it really matter who the candidates are?
Petronius| 10.12.11 @ 9:22AM
What the Obamanoids want is a world without commerce. The existence of markets and businesses imposes the necessity upon all to make a living. What the Obama administration would dearly love to do is shut down the economy, commandeer all resources and goods, and turn this country into a colossal kindergarten in which everything in life comes from government with the populace divided into two factions; Obama voters and the rest, who will be their slaves until we all sit on our hands and his thugs kill us. After that, the erstwhile United States will be just like any despotic country in Africa where everybody robs and kills but nobody produces.
Mike D.| 10.12.11 @ 9:25AM
Thats surely what his father wanted.
Stammon| 10.12.11 @ 11:42AM
This country will tear itself apart before that happens. There are too many of us who have the means and will to protect the Constitution, to have this Glorious Cause fade gently into the night. We should thank Obama, he has illuminated the evils of the left, and educated the middle of this country.
Jim Mulcahy| 10.12.11 @ 9:53AM
you are too kind. He IS anti-business. The fact that he has no background in business just means he has no idea about the extent of the damage his policies are doing. He believes in the very core of his being that govt. is the source of prosperity.
Steve A| 10.12.11 @ 9:53AM
This is all very easy to explain & understand: Obama has been taught & believed, his entire life, that social justice would create a superior society. He firmly believes this & still does. He, therefore, enacted such policies as to bring about this "change" when he got elected. The results have been a predictable disaster to anyone with an Econ. 101 class under their belt.
The result is this: He must now blame capitalism, Republicans, Tea Party, Arab Spring, Bush, Palin, Tsunamis, Racism, Europe & most of all, a corporate conspiracy of greedy CEO's, intentionally not hiring people & sitting on their $$ so as he is not re-elected.
It's all very simple.
Redstateboy| 10.12.11 @ 10:00AM
what I see here or should I say, what I Don't see here; are his lemming Liber-uls defenders declaring all the ways what is reported here is not so - giving examples backing up their claims.
Drunken Sailor| 10.12.11 @ 3:51PM
They must be having problems with their Blackberry's
Buck Ofama| 10.12.11 @ 12:17PM
>[Ovomit] has hired hordes of bright, passionate, and aggressive political appointees primarily committed to various causes.
Gee, that sounds just like the motley collection of whining, whimpering, sniveling Wall St. "protesters".
nohussein| 10.12.11 @ 12:28PM
Thats a big 10-4!
JeffT| 10.12.11 @ 1:31PM
Obama is simply refining the attacks on BIG business that have been ongoing for over 100 years. The Progressive movement has made business, read Capitalism, the target of their wrath. The media has been a big contributor to this attack. Watch any TV drama and you'll see a very aggressive attack on business and businesspeople. This has had a deleterious effect on all of us. People are just parroting what they been fed over the last 30-40 years from TV and our colleges and universities. Watch the videos of these rejects repeating the words of the speakers at the OWS mob scenes around the country. It is pathetic and frightening, at the same time. We have never had a better example of mind-numbed robots.
Questionman| 10.12.11 @ 1:39PM
Ha, that's rich. Some of you guys are so hysterical about Obama you'll say anything you can think of that's 'bad' even if it perfectly contradicts what you've said previously.
You now act as if being in the hip pocket of corporate america is a bad thing (it is) after having talked about how Obama's an anti-business Marxist (wrong), but doesn't know that Obama's a big-business corporatist (he is) and that they're the ones pulling the strings (they are). Well, it's never too late to be right, but how long before you contradict yourself again? My guess, exactly one post! Wee!
Government has always been changing regulations since the beginning of the country. It's nothing new and isn't stifling business. That's just a convenient excuse - sort of like the health care providers blaming HCR on the raising rates, despite those rates going up at the same pace for years before HCR even came into existence. Big employers weren't creating jobs for the entire last decade when you had GOP leadership everywhere and no major new regulations - but it's Obama's regulations that are causing them not to do so now? Total nonsense. What a bunch of stupid racists scum!
Tim the Enchanter| 10.12.11 @ 2:33PM
Project much?
Bill| 10.12.11 @ 4:08PM
Anyone who disagrees with the Annointed One and his zombies is a "racist". By the way, he is ruining one of the greatest economic engines in history in an effort to pander to the socialists/communist/marxists environmentalists, unions, LGBT and every other liberal constientuency. His policies are purely driven by ideology and not logic.
Martin Owens| 10.12.11 @ 5:05PM
Can I offer a piece of advice? I think it would be a good idea to stop repeating the statist codewords liberals use to disguise their agenda. Let them define the debate and you're licked before you start.
" Social justice"? What's that? And who says so?
" Union rights"? To do what?
" Environment"? whose? " to be " protected"? To what standard, and once again, who says so?
Stop giving the Leftocracy credit for playing fair, because they aren't.
Old Soldier| 10.12.11 @ 6:09PM
Unfortunately we don't have the most anti-business Congress in memory. So many of them have been bad it's too close to call.
Claire Solt PhD| 10.13.11 @ 10:19AM
I saw this on Kudlow. I loved it when Johnson, when asked about the Buffet rule, said that Buffet should give his secretary a big raise. LOL He is a real tightwad.
Timely Renewed | 10.13.11 @ 5:33PM
The solution must go deeper than simply replacing this incompetent ideologue. Much of the Obama administration's ability to wage its war on business comes from a constitutional jurisprudence which has allowed the national government to expand far beyond its proper constitutional bounds. We can only hope to be free of this or future administrations of its ilk when we restore the original limits on the national government. Given how entrenched that Supreme Court jurisprudence is, this can only be done by amendments restating those original constitutional understandings. See http://www.timelyrenewed.com.
Beckwith | 10.13.11 @ 5:34PM
Obama is the most anti-business leader since George III.
Robert Layton| 10.17.11 @ 1:01PM
What about the 2/3 of American corporations that pay NO income taxes , and the greedy CEO salaries that have risen dramatically in the last 10 to 12 years. Are they good for the American economy or just the wealthy. You need to look at the whole picture in perspective!